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| Second Place at the Sea Otter Classic Criterium |
I suppose it's time to catch up on some blogging. It's been a productive Spring racing season for me. Finally. I feel like it's taken 2 years to get to this point, but it's been well worth it. Last year (my first year in Cat4), I really didn't want to be aggressive. I wanted to race as many races as I could, and get a good feel for what was going on. Somewhere deep down, I knew I wasn't ready to be as fast as the guys that were winning races. So I would race, but never attack or sprint for the finish, but I still trained my ass off. This year has been the opposite. When I started training for this season (at the end of November), I knew from the get-go, that I wanted to do well this year. I was focused and disciplined all winter. During a few training races in February, I took the mindset that when it was time to pedal, I was going to pedal hard, and when I saw opportunities and openings, I was going to take them. Here's how my Spring season has unfolded so far:
Snowcone Crit #2- 16th
Snowcone Crit #3- DNF, mechanical
Carl Dolan Memorial Crit- 6th
Sea Otter Classic Crit- 2nd
Sea Otter Classic Circuit Race- 11th
Rock Lititz Tour Road Race- 27th (worked to successfully pull back the breakaway)
Rock Lititz Tour Mountain TT- DNF, took a wrong turn on the course (along with at least 3 other riders)
Rock Lititz Tour Crit- 2nd
There's still a lot more racing to come this year. I've already accomplished a few goals, so I'm setting new ones as I go. My initial goal for this season was to earn enough points to upgrade to Cat 3, but now I'm not sure if that's what I want. I may take another year to get more comfortable before going to the next level. One thing's for sure, my skills are continuing to develop each year. This year, I'm a much more patient rider...not panicking at every attack, sitting-in when I need to rest, but I'm also more confident. If I see that I need to back off for a second, in order to find a safe slot to be in, I know that I can leap-frog my way back up the chain when we come out of the turn (Rock Lititz Crit was the perfect example of this...avoiding the big crash at the end, and sprinting for 2nd).
Next on the lineup, I've got Smoketown, BikeJam, Ride Sally Ride, and Leonardtown. I'm bringing my training back down to aerobic for a couple weeks, then going in to another build period to try to stay strong for another couple months. I'm hoping for continued success in the coming weeks!
